This invention is directed to a portion of an overall document feeder described and claimed in simultaneously filed, commonly assigned application Ser. No. 433,498 by George Fallos entitled High Speed Document Feeder.
This invention relates to sheet feeding and delivering apparatus. In particular, it relates to a document handler and feeder device for accomplishing efficient signal separation of documents from a hopper supply, and skewless high speed transport of such documents.
Current high speed document feeding apparatus exhibit tendencies to misfeed and to feed "doubles." Another prevailing problem is misalignment (skew) of documents after they have been separated from a stack and are being transported.
Hence, for efficient handling of documents, a high speed document handler is needed which accomplishes consistent single separation of stacked documents and high speed transport of these documents with minimal misalignment. Whereupon, it is an object of this invention to provide a high speed document handler capable of separating a single document from a stack in a consistent manner without producing "missing" or "multiple feeding"; and it is another object to provide a high speed document handler which is capable of maintaining documents aligned during high speed transport.
Because of the intricacies of high speed feeding apparatus, even slight force imbalances create document jamming in a transport assembly. Consequently, it is a further object to provide a high speed document handler having easy access to its actual transporting areas to clear document jams.
Another object is to provide an improved type of feed roller.
Still another object is to provide a high speed document handler including adjustable components to adapt the assembly to documents having varied surface characteristics and thickness.